The Fundamental Social Demand of Our Times

Schmidt Number: S-3615

On-line since: 30th June, 2009

LECTURE 3

Dornach, December 15, 1918

The Metamorphosis of Intelligence

My dear friends,

In part of
yesterday's lecture I took my start from an essay by
Berdiayeff, an essay based on the prejudice which we might
describe as an unqualified belief in modern science and
learning. This essay, however, also records a remarkable
fact, intelligible only through the contrast between the
logic of the intellect (which is of course the logic of
modern science) and the logic of realities. Berdiayeff points
out that Bolshevism has appointed Avenarius, Mach and other
noted positivists, so to speak, as its official philosophers.
I may add explicitly that this essay was written as long ago
as 1908. It is a remarkable thing — intelligible only
on our spiritual-scientific basis — to find in the work
of this Russian author a judgment (no matter what our
attitude to these things may be), most in agreement with the
present time, or perhaps I should rather say, a judgment
still applicable to the present time. And it may be
worthwhile for you to know that Mach and Avenarius were
already spoken of as official philosophers of the Bolsheviks
at a time when — I hope I am making no undue
presumptions — when a considerable number possibly even
of this audience had not the remotest idea what Bolshevism
is. For a large part of mankind in Western and Middle Europe
have only been aware of the existence of Bolshevism for a
very short time, whereas in fact it is a very old
phenomenon.

I now want to
add something more to the studies we have recently pursued. I
was anxious above all to show you how the social impulses of
the present time are to be judged and considered in the light
of Spiritual Science. One thing we emphasized especially:
— We must not give ourselves up to the simple belief
that the social impulses are to be conceived in a uniform way
over the whole world. It will cloud and mislead all our
thoughts and judgments about the social question if we do not
take into account that human communities throughout the
civilized world are differentiated. We must avoid the error
into which men fall when they say, of the social question,
“This or that holds good; human society must be ordered
thus and thus!” Rather must we put this question thus:
— What is the nature of the forces in Eastern Humanity;
what is the nature of the forces in Western Humanity; and
what is the nature in the Humanity living the midst between
the two? What is the nature in each case of the forces
leading to the social demands of the age? We have already
characterized in manifold ways, both from the external
symptoms and from the inner occult standpoint, the nature of
this differentiation between Western Humanity, Middle
Humanity, and Eastern Humanity; and observe that in the
latter we include the European East, namely Russia. We have
already characterized how these differentiations are to be
conceived. Without a knowledge of them it is altogether
impossible to think fruitfully about the social question.

Now let us ask
ourselves (we have often touched upon this question, but
today we will bring out certain other details), — let
us ask ourselves what is the fundamental quality of soul, the
fundamental and decisive quality which is brought out in the
age that began in the fifteenth century and that will last,
as I told you, on into the third millennium? This fundamental
quality which has scarcely yet shown itself in its true form,
but only in its first beginning — the fundamental
quality which is evolving and will evolve ever more and more
— is that of human Intelligence — Intelligence as
a property of the soul. Thus in the course of this epoch man
will more and more be called upon to judge about all things
out of his own Intelligence and notably about social,
scientific and religious matters, for indeed, the religious,
the scientific, and the social impulses do in a certain sense
exhaustively describe the range of human life.

Now perhaps
this conception of the Intelligent being of Man, which we
must necessarily awaken in ourselves, will come to you more
easily if you realize the following. Of the fourth
Post-Atlantean Age it cannot be said in the same sense as of
the present time, that man as a personality wished to
establish himself purely on the ground of the intelligence. I
brought this out very clearly in my book
The Riddles of Philosophy
in regard to philosophic thought. In the
fourth Post-Atlantean Age, ending in the fifteenth century
A.D.,
it was not necessary for man to make use of the
intelligence in a personal way. With their perceptions of the
environment, with their other relationships in life to the
world, the concepts, the ideas, that is to say the
intelligent element, also flowed into the human being just as
colors and sounds enter the human being in perception.
Notably for the Greeks, the intelligent-content was a
Perception; and it was so also for the Romans.

For the man of
modern time, since the fifteenth century, the outcome of
intellectual activity can no longer be a perception.
The intellectual element is left out of the world of
perceptions. Man no longer receives the concepts and ideas at
one and the same time with the perceptions. It is an entire
error to imagine that this great change did not take place at
the turn of the fifteenth century. This kind of error, this
inability to distinguish, has indeed been perceived by some
people even in the ordinary outer life. Thus a European, as
we can easily realize, is apt to see all Japanese exactly
alike. Although they are just as different from one another
as Europeans are, yet he does not distinguish them. So too,
modern learning does not distinguish between the several
epochs, but imagines them all alike. But that is not the
case. On the contrary, a mighty change took place, for
instance at the turn of the fifteenth century when men ceased
to perceive the concepts at one and the same time with the
perception; — when they began really to have to work
for their concepts. For the man of the present day has to
bring forth, elaborate, the concepts out of his own
personality. We are only in the initial states of it. It will
become more and more so.

Now the man of
the West, the Middle and the East are in the highest degree
differentiated, especially in regard to this development of
the intelligence. And since the theoretic demands of the
Proletariat today, as is natural in the fifth Post-Atlantean
Age, the Age of the Spiritual Soul, — since these
demands are brought forward as intelligent demands, it is
necessary to consider the relationships and differentiations
of the intelligent being of the human soul over the face of
the earth. It is necessary to consider it also in relation to
the social impulses.

The
significance of these things is underestimated because they
still work today so largely in the subconscious. Man with his
easy-going thought is not anxious to make clear distinctions
in clear consciousness. But every man has an inner
man within him, raying forth into his consciousness only
to a certain extent. And this inner man makes very clear and
sharp distinctions, distinctions for example as between the
Western Man, the Middle Man, and the Eastern Man, according
to his point of view, according as to whether he himself is a
Western, a Middle, or an Eastern Man.

I am not now
referring to the single individuality as such, I mean that in
man which belongs to his nationality. I beg you always to
observe this distinction. Of course the single individual
rises out of the national element. Of course there are men
today in whom the national element works scarcely at all.
There are those who systematically try to be pure human
beings without letting the national quality determine them.
But insofar as it does work in them, it comes to expression
in the varied ways which we have already characterized in
these lectures. Today we will consider it once more from
certain points of view and in relation to the social
question.

In effect,
whenever the social question emerges, when anything emerges
which depends not only on the individual human being but on
the community, the qualities of the Nation, Folk or People
will always come into account. The member, let us say, of the
British Nation or the member of the German People or the
inhabitant of the Russian Earth (I purposely distinguish them
just in this way), these three as individuals may, if you
will, have just the same judgments. But the English, the
German and the Russian political or social structure cannot
be the same. They must be differentiated. For here the
community comes into account. We are, therefore, calling into
question not so much the individual relationship of man to
man, but that which works from people to people, or
differentiates the one nation from another. Again and again I
must sharply emphasize this fact, for partly with good
intentions and partly out of malice these things which I
bring forward are again and again misunderstood.

Take one thing
for example. I beg you to take these things “sine
ira” quite objectively. They are not meant as
criticizing but only as an indication of the facts. I beg you
therefore to take them without any sympathies or antipathies.
Let us consider a man of Mid-Europe, who observe[s] the life of
the English-speaking people and on the other side the life of
the Russian-speaking people; he observes them as they come to
expression in the characteristic ways of thinking of these
peoples — once more then, not of the individual human
beings but of the peoples as such. Consciously, the Middle
European may pass all kinds of judgments. Needless to say,
nowadays a man will say this or that according to public
opinion, which is always equivalent to private indolence.

That may be so,
but the inner man, the inner Mid-European man, looking to the
West, to the English-speaking people, and contemplating the
nation as it expressed itself politically and socially
— though he need not bring it to his consciousness at
all —will always pass the judgment,
“Philistines!” And when he looks across to
Russia, he will say “Bohemians!” Of course that
is somewhat radically spoken. And he himself will hear from
left and right the answer: — “You may call us
Philistines, you may call us Bohemians, but you — you
are a Pedant!” Certainly that may be so, that again is
judging from another point of view. But these things are more
of a reality than one imagines, and they must be derived from
the very depths of human evolution.

Now the
peculiar thing is this. Within the English-speaking
population the Intelligence is instinctive. It works
instinctively. It is a new instinct that has arisen in the
evolution of mankind; the instinct to think intelligently.
The very thing the spiritual soul will have to educate, the
Intelligence, is practiced instinctively by the
English-speaking people. The English people has a native
talent for the instinctive exercise of the intelligence.

The Russian
people differs from the English as the North Pole from the
South (or I might even say as the North Pole from the
Equator), with respect to this impulse of the intelligent
being in man. In Middle Europe, as I have said before now,
men do not have the intelligence instinctively; they must be
brought up to it. The intelligence must be trained and
developed in them. That is the tremendous difference. In
England and America the intelligence is instinctive. It has
all the qualities of an instinct. In Mid-Europe nothing of
intelligence is born in one. One must be trained brought up
to it. It must be grasped in the becoming, in the
development of man. In Russia it is so, that men
even argue with one another as to what the intelligence
really is (I could refer to many manifestations of this in
literature; you must not think that I construct these things
myself).

According to
many statements by Russians with real insight, what they call
the intelligence is something quite different from what is
called so in Mid-Europe, let alone in England. In Russia an
intelligent man is not one who has studied this and that.
Whom do we call here the Intellectuals (for this will surely
have some relation to the intelligence)? We call the
“Intellectuals” those who have studied, who have
made this or that subject their own, and have thus trained
themselves in thought. As I said, in Western Europe and
America the Intelligence is even a native quality, born in
them. But we shall not permit ourselves to exclude from the
Intelligentsia the businessman, the civil servant, or a
member of any one of the liberal professions. But the Russian
will do so most decidedly. He will not so easily reckon as a
“man of intelligence” a businessman, a civil
servant, or a member of one of the liberal professions. No,
among the Russians a man of Intelligence must be a man who is
awake, who has attained a certain self-consciousness. The
civil servant who has studied much, who even has a judgment
on many things, need not be an enlightened man. But the
workman who thinks about his connection with the social
order, who is awake as to his relation to Society, he is a
man of Intelligence. In Russia it is very significant; one is
even obliged to apply the word intelligence in quite a
different sense. For, you see, whereas in the West the
intelligence is instinctive, born in one, and in the Middle
one is trained to it, or at any rate it is evolved in one, in
the East it is treated as something that is certainly not
born in one — nor can one merely be trained to it. It
is not to be evolved quite as easily as that. It is something
that awakens from out of a certain depth within the human
soul. Man awakens to intelligence. This fact has been
observed especially by certain members of the “Cadet
Party,” who say that this faith in enlightenment of
“awakening” is the very reason why a certain
arrogance and conceit is to be found in the intelligentsia of
Russia, despite all their other qualities of humility.

The fact is
that this intelligence in Russia has a very special part to
play in the evolution of mankind. If you do not let
yourselves be deceived, if you do not give yourselves up to
illusions of external symptoms, but go to the heart of the
matter, then — however insignificant the Russians'
intelligence may appear to you in this or that Russian
according to your Western of Mid-European ideas, you will
recognize the following. You will say: — “This
intelligence is being preserved and guarded from all
instinctive qualities.” Such indeed is the idea of the
Russian; the intelligence must not be corrupted by any kind
of human instinct, nor must we imagine that anything worth
mentioning has been attained with all the intellectuality to
which we train and educate ourselves. The Russian —
unconsciously, needless to say — wants to preserve and
keep the intelligence until the coming of the sixth
Post-Atlantean Age, which is his age. So that when that time
comes, he shall not reach down with his intelligence into
human instincts, but carry it upward into the region where
the Spirit-Self will blossom forth. Whereas the
English-speaking people let the intelligence sink down into
the instincts, the Russian desires above all to preserve and
protect it. At all costs he will not let it go down into the
instincts. He wants to nurse and cherish it, little as it may
be today, so as to keep it for the coming Age, when the
Spirit-Self— the purely spiritual — shall become
permeated with it.

When we regard
the matter thus in its foundations, my dear friends, then
even such a thing as with unbiased judgment we must criticize
root and branch, will appear as arising out of a certain
necessity in human evolution.

As I said,
Russians themselves — Russians with insight who
characterize these things — discover quite rightly that
the Russian intelligence has a two-fold basis which lies
inherent in its evolution. Namely it has received the
configuration, the character it has today, through the fact
that the Russian who has evolved intelligence and who claims
to be a wide-awake and enlightened man, has been suppressed
by the power of the police. He has had to defend himself, to
the point of martyrdom, against the violence of the police.
As I said, we may well condemn this; but we must also reach a
clear and unclouded judgment. The specific character of this
Russian Intelligence, seeking to preserve itself for future
spiritual impulses of mankind, is absolutely conditioned on
the one hand by the police suppression by which it has been
tortured and persecuted. And on the other hand, in a
perfectly natural way — as Russian authors themselves
bring out again and again — this Russian intelligence
(just because it wants to preserve itself for future ages),
is today a thing remote from the world. It does not easily
come to grips with life. It is directed to quite other things
than are immediately pulsating through the world. We may say
therefore that in this respect too the Russian life of Soul
is the very opposite of what we find in the English-speaking
population. In the West, we may say, the intelligence is
police-protected; in the East it is challenged and persecuted
by the police. One man may prefer the one, another may prefer
the other alternative. The point here is simply to
characterize the facts. In the West, as I said, the
intelligence is protected, its peculiar character is meant to
flow into the outer life; it has to be inherent everywhere in
the social structure. In the West it is the proper thing for
men to take part through their intelligence in the social
structure and the like. In Russia, no matter whether it be by
the Czar or Lenin, the intelligence is suppressed by the
police, and will continue so for a long time to come. Indeed,
perhaps the very nerve and strength of it lies in the fact
that it is suppressed by the police. We can put these things
together, my dear friends, in a pretty epigrammatic way, and
yet correctly. One can say, for instance — In Russia
the intelligence is persecuted; in Mid-Europe it is tamed;
and in the West it is born tame.

If we make this
division, this differentiating, then — strange as the
words may sound — we are hitting the nail on the head.
In England and America, with respect to the Constitution,
with respect to external politics, nay even with respect to
the social structure, the intelligence is “born”
tame. In Mid-Europe it is tamed. In the East where it would
like to run about at random, it is persecuted.

These are the
things that must be seen if we would see realities instead of
entering into them in a merely chaotic way which can never
lead to any real insight.

Now the point
is this: On the one hand human beings are differentiated in
this way, notably with regard to the intelligence, inasmuch
as the Nation or Folk is working in them. They are
differentiated as I have indicated often and in different
directions, and am indicating again from a certain point of
view today. On the other hand while, in the age of the
Spiritual Soul this differentiation must be clearly seen, we
must find at the same time the possibility to transcend it.
There are two ways to transcend these things in real life. In
the first place by learning to know them. So long as we only
declaim from general abstract points of view that this or
that is the true social standpoint, so long as we have no
knowledge of the differentiations of mankind, all our talk is
valueless. Insight into these things, that is the one thing
of importance. The other is that we should still be able in a
certain way to rise out of these things with human
consciousness and experience. In practice we must reckon with
the differentiations. We must not imagine that men are the
same over the whole earth, or that the social question can be
solved in the same way over the whole Earth. We must know
that the social question has to be solved in different ways.
Out of the impulses in the different peoples it is seeking to
solve itself in different ways.

But this, my
dear friends, is only possible on a foundation such as is
provided here, by Spiritual Science. For if you have some
more or less chaotic — or even harmonious and
consistent — social idea, how can you apply it, my dear
friends? You can only apply it one-sidedly. You may have the
most beautiful ideas, capable of absolute proof, so that you
cannot but believe that all men, all the Earth over are to be
made happy and prosperous by their means. Indeed it is the
very misfortune of our times that it generally has such an
idea in mind. Who is there that thinks differently in our
time when he confronts his audience and speaks of his
political or social ideas? It is always in this style:
“Social conditions are to be ordered thus and thus
throughout the Earth, and with the ideas I am thinking out
the whole of mankind will prosper.” This is the way men
think today and indeed, on the foundations of our present
habits of thought, it is scarcely possible for them to think
in any other way.

But if you take
the social impulse derived from Spiritual Science, which I
explained to you a short while ago, you will see it has
quite a different character. In fact it breaks with this
habit of thought of our time. I said, the point is not to
have some uniform social ideal, but to investigate what is
seeking to realize itself. Then I drew your
attention to a three-fold membering of social life, which has
hitherto been gathered up chaotically into the one-fold
State. Today you will always see one Cabinet, one Parliament.
Indeed, it seems an ideal for the people of today to gather
everything together chaotically into a single Parliament. But
as I said, the reality of things is tending to hold apart
what is here being concentrated into one. The spiritual life
(including judicial — I do not mean general
administration, but the administration of civil and criminal
law) constitutes one member by itself. The economic life a
second member; and the life that regulates the two,
constitutes the third — general administration, public
security, and the like. These three should confront one
another just as independent States do today. They should deal
with one another through their representatives, ordering
their mutual relationships, but in themselves they should
enjoy independent sovereignty.

Let what I am
saying be reviewed and criticized and utterly condemned. One
will be criticizing not a theory but something that will be
actualized in the next forty or fifty years. And this
three-folding alone will make it possible for you to reckon
once more with the differentiations of mankind. For if you
only have a one-fold State you must force it upon all
humanity, as though you would put the same coat on a small, a
medium, and a very tall man (take the magnitude only for the
sake of illustration, I do not mean to describe the nations
as great or small). But in this three-foldness there is an
inherent universality. For the social structure of the West
will take shape in such a way that the life of
administration, the constitution, the general regulation of
public life, public security in the widest sense, will
preponderate. The other two will be to some extent
subordinate, dependent on this one. In other regions of the
Earth, it will be again different. Once more, one of the
three will predominate and the other two will be more or less
subordinate. With a threefold conception you have the
possibility to find, in your own view of things, the
differentiation of realities. A unitary idea you must extend
over the whole Earth, but of a thing inherently threefold you
can say: “In the West the one is predominant; in the
Middle the second is predominant; and in the East the third
is predominant.” Thus what you find as the ideal of the
social structure will be differentiated over the face of the
Earth. This is the fundamental difference of the view, here
presented out of Spiritual Science, from other views. This
view is applicable to realities from the very outset, because
it can be differentiated within itself and applied in a
differentiated way to the realities of life. Such is the
difference between an abstract and a concrete view of things.
An abstract theory consists of so many concepts of which one
believes that happiness will come. A concrete view is one of
which one knows: It in itself is such that the one can grow
and develop in the one case, the second in another, the third
in a third. The first or second or third will be applicable
to the corresponding outer conditions. This is what
distinguishes a view of realities from all dogmatism.
Dogmatism swears by dogmas, and dogmas can only maintain
their sway by tyrannizing over realities. A conception of
reality is like the reality itself; it is inherently a living
thing. Like the human or any other organism it is mobile and
alive, not fixed and rigid.

So is a real
conception inherently living, growing or developing, now in
one direction, now in another. This difference of a
conception of reality from dogmatism — this you must
understand, my dear friends, for it will help you most of all
to change the habits of thought within you, which change is
so badly needed by the men of today and from which they are
yet so far removed — far more than they know.

Moreover what I
am now telling you is connected in its deepest being with
Anthroposophical Spiritual Science. You see, for the ordinary
science of today man himself is a unity. The anatomist, the
physiologist studies the brain, the sense organs, nerves,
liver, spleen and heart. For him they are organs placed in
a single unitary organism. We do not do so. We distinguish
the head man, or nerves-and-senses man, from the chest man,
or man of breathing and blood circulation, and lastly from
the metabolic man, or man of the extremities, or as we might
also say muscular man. We distinguish, as you know, a
threefold man who lives in the world. Just because it does
not hold fast abstractly to the one-fold man,
Anthroposophical Spiritual Science discovers that social
organism in which man as a three-fold being is contained.
For, my dear friends, the guiding thread is always the
Anthroposophical membering of man. After all, these three
members themselves are, more or less, the outer symbols of
his being which man carries with him. For he himself is
rooted in all the worlds. We shall find in this three-folding
of man once more a guiding thread to envisage the
differentiation of humanity over the Earth.

Now that I
shall speak plainly about these things I beg you once more to
take them sine ire, for I am merely describing. I am
not criticizing nor am I saying anything to detract from the
one side or to find favor with the other side in any way. Let
us begin with the Russian man, the Eastern European man. We
simply cannot study him if we only have in mind the
present-day anatomy, physiology or psychology. We can only
study him if we bear in mind the threefold man, whose nature
I have indicated in broad outlines in my book
The Riddles of the Soul.
For if we consider the peculiar
characteristics of the Russian Soul, and generally of the
Russian people of today — I beg you to observe once
more, the Russian people of today — then we shall have
to say: In Russia (may our Russian friends forgive me, but it
is true) in Russia the head man is at home. Let our Russian
friends forgive me, for they themselves do not believe it,
but they are making a mistake. They no doubt will say: In
Russia the heart-man is at home, and the head, of all things,
is not so prominent. But you can only make such a statement
if you do not study Spiritual Science properly. For the
Russian head-culture appears predominantly as a culture of
the heart, just because — if I may put it tritely
— the Russian has his heart in his head. That is to
say, his heart works so strongly that it works up towards his
head, crosses his whole Intelligence, permeates everything.
It is the working of the heart upon the head, upon the
concepts and ideas, which configures the heart upon the head,
upon the concepts and ideas, which configures the whole of
the East-European culture.

And once more,
I pray that the mid-European will not take offence, but it
simply is so: Their essential characteristic — and this
describes the whole of the mid-European culture — is
that their head is perpetually falling into their chest,
while on the other hand the abdomen or the extremities are
perpetually being drawn up into the heart. That is the
essential thing in mid-European man. Hence it is so
frightfully hard for him to find his bearings, for he is
neither at the one end nor at the other. I described this
when I said recently that at the Guardian of the Threshold
the mid-European man experiences above all a wavering, a
tottering uncertainty and doubt.

Once again, may
our West European friends not be offended with me (for I see
you are already guessing what is left for them) their culture
is paramountly an abdominal, a muscular culture. That is
their peculiarity — in the nation, not in the single
man as such. All that proceeds from the culture of the
muscles works strongly even into the head. Hence the
instinctive quality of their intelligence. Hence too it is
there that we find the origin of muscular culture in the
modern sense—games, sports, athletics and so forth.
Indeed, all that I am saying — you will find its
evidence everywhere in external life if only you are willing,
if only you are prepared to look at the facts objectively.
Anthroposophical Spiritual Science will only give you the
guiding thread to observe the facts of life. In the Russian
it is so that his heart fumes up into his head. In the
English-speaking people the abdomen fumes up into the head
— but not only so, the head reacts in turn upon the
power body and directs it. It is very important to consider
these things. We need not always express them so radically as
we do in our own circle, my dear friends. After all, here we
understand one another; we have after all a certain measure
of good will one to another. We know how to take these things
objectively, not with sympathies and antipathies.

Thus you see,
we must envisage the threefold man; we must really know that
man is a threefold being, a being after the pattern of the
Trinity even when we are studying his physiological and
psychological differentiations. And this is the essential
thing; men must have an interest in one another not merely as
the parson preaches it, but a real interest holding sway
between man and man, which can after all only be founded on a
real insight. It remains as empty abstraction if you say:
“I love all men.” To enter into the other human
beings with understanding, that is the thing needful,
likewise it is necessary to enter into the different
communities of men with understanding, to have a true
judgment about them and about their social structure. And
this can only be the case when one knows the threefold nature
of man. Unless you know what is the predominant bodily
feature in a community of men, you cannot really know them.
To gain a real insight you must have some guiding thread,
otherwise you will confuse and muddle things together. That
is the point. Anthroposophical Spiritual Science is a thing
that reckons with reality. Hence it is a thing that men often
find unpleasant, for as a result of certain prejudice men do
not want to be seen through, not even in private life. They
find it dreadfully unpleasant to be seen through. We may
almost say that of any ten men, at least nine will be your
enemies if you really see through them. In one way or another
they will become your enemies. Men do not like being seen
through, even when it happens in the light that is
communicated here, my dear friends, so that it may serve to
enhance the love of humanity. For the abstract love of
humanity (I have often used this comparison), is like the
warmth that the stove ought to develop. You talk to it so:
“You are a stove. It is your duty as a stove to warm
the room.” But if you do not stoke it, all your moral
talk is useless. So it is with all the Sunday afternoon
addresses. However much you preach at men “love and
love again,” if you do not provide the fuel whereby men
and communities of men are known and understood, all
your preaching is worthless. Anthroposophical Spiritual
Science is fuel to kindle the right interest of man in man
— the real development of human love. Even the historic
facts, symptomatically as I unfolded them here a short while
ago, the important historic facts underlying the social
impulses of today — even these, my dear friends, can
only be brought home to human insight from the standpoint of
a conception of realities.

Bear in mind
all that we have already said of the differentiations of the
Western, the Middle, and the Eastern World. It will flow into
your souls still more abundantly if with its help you now
observe these worlds with understanding. And then perhaps we
may ask: How is it — apart from what we have already
said — how is it that the Russian intelligence can
preserve itself for future time? It needs, as it were, a
greater strength to protect the intelligence from the
encroaching instincts and the like than it requires to
exercise the native instinctive intelligence. It needs a
greater strength. And this too has been attained by certain
arrangements, if I may call them so, in the evolution of
Occidental Humanity. Take only this one circumstance.

Russia has in
many respects been held aloof from the currents and movements
of civilized life that have taken their course in the West. I
once described to you from another point of view this damming
up, this congestion of a civilization of former ages towards
the East. See for instance how the division of the Church
took place in the ninth century and was completed in the
tenth. An earlier form of Christianity was driven back
towards the East, there to remain stationary and
conservative. Thus we may say: A certain condition, which was
spread over the whole of Christendom in early centuries, has
been driven Eastward and has there remained stationary.
Meanwhile the West has continued to evolve its Christianity.
Thus something was pushed back towards the East. That on the
one side, while on the other side, into the same East,
something was pushed forward — namely the Tartar
element and all that came from Asia, from Eastward of the
Russian East. All this is only an expression of the fact that
on the Russian earth earlier forces of humanity have been
congested and have received into themselves the human element
that came from Asia — in a more youthful condition than
the West European humanity.

Or again,
consider the mid-European civilization in its dependence on
Protestantism — a dependence far greater than is
generally thought. At bottom the whole civilization of
mid-Europe is configured out of the impulse of
Protestantism. I do not mean this or that religious creed, I
mean the impulse of Protestantism. Protestantism itself, for
one who regards things from a higher vantage point is but a
symptom. The essential thing is the spiritual impulse that is
working in it. Take all the science and scholarship that is
carried on in Middle Europe, the whole form of its
development is influenced by Protestantism. Without
Protestantism the mid-European culture is utterly
unthinkable.

Now what
appears so predominant at one place is present differently,
in a different relationship to life, at another. It is as I
showed you just now when I spoke of the social tasks of
Anthroposophy which must be applied in differentiated ways.
What has Protestantism been in Middle Europe? One might say
that Protestantism gave the first impetus to man's supporting
himself on his own Intelligent Being. The mid-European
intelligence, of which I said that it has to be trained and
educated, is very closely connected with Protestantism. Even
the Catholic action which has arisen against Protestantism
is, rightly considered, Protestant in character, except when
it happens to proceed from the Jesuits, who have consciously,
deliberately held back the impulse that came through
Protestantism. This inner impulse working through
Protestantism works, if I may put it so, in its purest
essence in mid-Europe. For how did it work in Western Europe?
Study the historic facts in the proper symptomatic way and
you will find: — the working of Protestantism in
Western Europe and in America corresponds as a matter of
course to the inborn Intelligent Instinct. Indeed it comes to
expression more in the political than in the religious life.
It works itself out as a perfect matter of course. It
permeates everything. It does not need a special statement or
constitution. Albeit here and there reformist hearts were
kindled into flame, it does not need to bring forth so
shattering a Reformation as took place in Middle Europe. In
the West it is there as a matter of course. At this point we
might even say: The modern Western man is born as a
Protestant. The Mid-European discusses and argues as a
Protestant. In Middle Europe, Protestantism above all calls
forth all the discussions about the things of intelligence.
Here it is not inborn. And the Russian — as a Russian
— absolutely rejects Protestantism; he will have
nothing to do with it. Indeed, as a Russian he simply cannot
do with it. Russianism and Protestantism are
incompatibles.

What I am now
saying comes to expression not only in the religious
confessions — no, not by any means. It comes to
expression in the receiving of every kind of cultural
impulse. Take Marxism for example. You can trace its course
in the Western countries. There it is received from the very
outset as a straightforward protest against the old
conditions of property and the like. In the Middle Countries
there has to be much discussion on those things, and much
argument and bickering and doubt, much useless talk. All this
arises out of the character of the Middle Countries. And in
Eastern Europe Marxism takes on the strangest forms. There it
must first be completely transformed. Take the Marxism of
Eastern Europe, you will find it permeated, tinged through
and through by the spirit of Russian Orthodoxy. Not in its
ideas, but in the way the Russian relates himself to it,
Marxism in Russia bears the stamp of Orthodox Faith.

All this, my
dear friends, is only to draw your attention to the need of
looking beyond the externals and seeing the true inwardness
of things. Much will be gained if you accustom yourselves to
see in relation to many things of life — the words as
they are used today are to a great extent “disused
coinage.”

What people
think according to the customary usage of words is never
really in accordance with reality: we must everywhere look
deeper. Protestantism, for instance, defined in the usual way
according to present-day habits of thought, no longer
expresses a reality. We must conceive it in such a way as to
recognize how it appears in Marxism, or in politics
generally, or even in science. Then we shall have something
that accords with the reality. So radically is it necessary
for us to strive to get beyond the mere semblance of words
and concepts, and to take hold of real life. Everything
depends on this, my dear friends; and on this, above all,
depends the right conception of the most important impulse of
the present time, which is the social impulse. On this
depends a true judgment of the facts of our time. Just
because men are so unaccustomed to look at the realities,
they judge of the conditions of our time in such distorted
ways. Because they are so far removed from real conceptions,
they keep on asking about guilt and innocence in relation to
the recent war-catastrophe; whereas this question about guilt
and innocence as such has not the slightest meaning. I told
you here some considerable time ago how these things lay
inherent in world-impulses. Just as the map which I sketched
before you here is being realized in fact today, so are the
other things too on the point of realization. They will
indeed be realized, precisely as they were here described, my
dear friends. We must have a sense for the reality and not
adhere to the empty husks of words. True, the latter must
often be used for purposes of description, but we must not
adhere to them, must not stop short at them. Thus we must
also see from a standpoint of reality the judgment, formed by
the Entente and the Americans, which is now being passed upon
the Middle Countries. I have already said: When this
catastrophe of War began, I heard from many quarters
criticisms “root and branch” of what the Middle
Countries were then doing. Today the people who were
criticizing them then are heard far less in criticism of what
in truth is a policy of violence, and all the rest of it.
Truth to tell, there would be sufficient cause for a
similarly harsh judgment in this case. I think I have never
spoken to protect any personalities; I have simply
characterized the facts and conditions. Hence it is
absolutely not my task, in any way to defend personalities
whose characters have been unveiled in the most recent time.
But, my dear friends, whether the unqualified deification of
Wilsonism for example, and of all that is connected with it,
lies less inherent in the tendency to some form of idolatry
than the Ludendorff-worship which they evolved in the Middle
Countries (and which I described as a special chapter in
social psychiatry) — that is a question, after all,
which would have to be decided with great care. We cannot
pass it over quite so lightly.

Considering the
matter, however, from another point of view I once said to
you here, my dear friends, that when one person rails at
another, and says hard things, the cause is not always
— indeed in the rarest cases — to be found in the
other person. He may of course be a bad sort; but this
badness of his is, for anyone who observes reality
objectively, the thing that least of all calls forth the
abuse. No, for the most part the cause of the abuse is a need
to abuse. And this need of abuse seeks an object, it wants to
let itself go. And it seeks to bring its thoughts into such a
form that they appear to be justified in the soul of the
abusing party. So it is often in the individual intercourse
of men with one another. But in the large affairs of the
world it is no different; only here we must bear in mind that
there are also deeper reasons. You see, it is perfectly
intelligible and natural for people in the Entente and
American countries now to criticize and condemn root and
branch not only individual potentates but the whole
population of the Middle Countries, and to say all manner of
things in this direction. We can well understand it for, my
dear friends, what would the policy of the Entente countries
in these weeks look like, if the people [in] those countries were
to say: “The people in the Middle Countries are not so
bad after all, at bottom they are only human beings, they
need only develop the better aspects of their nature, then
they are quite alright.” Yes, if they were to say that,
it would agree very badly with the policy they are now
pursuing. In the world, my dear friends, one must say the
things that justify one's action.

We must know
how things proceed out of realities. That is a deeper way of
seeing things. It goes without saying that the entire public
opinion of the Entente Countries is as it is, not because it
is true but in order to justify their own attitude; just as
it often happens when one man rails against another, he does
so, not because the man he rails against is such or such, but
because he has a need to rail against something and wants to
let it out. Yes it really is necessary to see things
differently than men are wont to see them. And this is the
whole point: to take hold of Spiritual Science in the inmost
foundations of one's soul is in many respects a very
different thing from what is conceived, even by many who call
themselves adherents of the Anthroposophical Movement.

Outwardly,
abstractly considered — and we come now to a different
chapter — one might believe that the socialism, the
social demands of the present day proceed from social
impulses. I described the other day how man oscillates
between social and anti-social impulses or instincts. An
abstract thinker would take it as a matter of course that the
socialist proletarian of the present time is a product of
social impulses. For it is proper, is it not, to define the
social by the social. But it is not true, my dear friends.
One who considers the proletarian socialism of the present
day in its reality knows well that socialism as it appears in
the Marxism of today is an anti-social phenomenon, a product
of anti-social impulses. Such is the difference between
abstract definition, abstract thinking, and realistic
thinking. Ask yourselves: What is the driving force in those
who are seeking to realize socialism in the direction to
which I am referring? Are they being driven by social
instincts? No, by anti-social instincts. I showed it
yesterday even by external indications, by the inner
structure of their formula: Proletarians of all lands, unite!
That is to say: Feel hatred against other classes in order
that you may feel the bond that shall unite you! There you
have one of the anti-social impulses. And we might adduce
very many anti-social impulses if we studied the social
psychology of the present day. Such is the difference between
the way of thought that is arising and evolving — that
must arise and evolve and that is to be helped on by
Spiritual Science — and all that lies in the current
habits of thought of today.

Hence, too, the
Anthroposophical standpoint which must be put forward in
relation to the social question meets as yet with so much
opposition. For people cannot think in accordance with
realities. Above all, they cannot think in a differentiated
way; and if any one does think in this way, they frequently
believe that he is contradicting himself.

Important
questions of the present day will only be solved by realistic
thinking. I will tell you one such question, relating to what
we have already spoken of. I said: the thing that is rumbling
especially in proletarian minds and that constitutes a motive
force in them is this: the ancient slavery has been replaced
by the modern enslavement of labor, inasmuch as in the
present social structure, labor is a commodity from the labor
power. Indeed the threefold social structure of which I have
told you already contains the impulse to free the commodity
from human labor. For this threefold ordering will entail,
not logical conclusions, but conclusions in reality, in the
reality of things seen.

Now this
question, my dear friends, is followed by another, an
absolutely burning question at the present moment. You know,
one of the fundamental demands of proletarian materialism
with its Marxist coloring, is the socialization or
nationalization of the means of production. The means of
production are to be made communal property, and this would
only be the beginning of communal property in general: in the
land, for instance, and so forth. It is a part of the
programme of the Russian Soviet Republic, which I explained
to you, to socialize, or nationalize the means of production
and the land. Now at this point we come to the most important
subsidiary social question. Today the tendency of proletarian
thinking is to make things communal property. But, my dear
friends, for the most important social impulses, it makes no
difference at all whether an individual or an association or
the community as such is the owner. To anyone who is able to
study the realities, this is clearly revealed. In relation to
the individual worker, the community will be an employer or
captain of industry, not a whit less bad than the individual
employer. This lies in the nature of the case, it is like a
law of Nature. People only fail to see it, and hence they are
misled. For the real question is this: Shall all men become
owners of property. That would happen, if, instead of having
communal property (I cannot here explain the technique, but
it is perfectly feasible), the individuals — every one
of them — owned property in a just way, according to
the given opportunities in any territory. Shall all become
property owners? Or shall all become proletarians? That is
the alternative. The proletarian thinking of the present day
wants to make all men proletarians, so that the community
alone would be the employer. But if we can see the reality,
the very opposite will be the outcome. The three-foldness of
the social structure can never be attained by making all men
proletarians. The tendency of the threefold structure must
really be to attain the freedom of the individual in respect
of body, soul and spirit. That is not to be attained by all
men becoming proletarians, but is to be attained — for
every individual — if all men possess a certain basis
of property.

The second
thing that must be attained is a regulation of social
conditions, such that before the law or constitution, before
the government in fact, all men are equal: Liberty in
spiritual matters; Equality in the State (for if you will,
one third may continue to be called so); and Fraternity in
relation to the economic life. I know well-written books
which rightly emphasize that the three ideals, Liberty,
Equality, and Fraternity contradict one another; it is true,
Equality decidedly contradicts Liberty. Very clever writers
said this even in 1848 or even earlier. If we muddle
everything together these things contradict one another.
There must be Liberty in the spiritual and judicial
domain, the domain of religion, education and jurisprudence.
There must be Equality in the administration, in the
government, the services of public security. There must be
Fraternity in the economic domain. In the economic
domain we have property, which must however be
correspondingly developed in the future. In the domain of
public security and administration we must have Equity or
Right. In the domain of spiritual life and jurisprudence we
must have Liberty. When divided into a trinity,
these things are not in contradiction with one another. For
here the things that contradict one another in thought are
still in accordance with reality, because in the reality they
are distributed to the different domains. The mere thought
burrows for contradictions; but the reality lives in
contradictions. We cannot grasp the reality if we cannot
grasp the contradictions, follow them and deal with them in
our thoughts.

So you see,
Spiritual Science as here intended certainly has something to
say to the most important questions of the time. Perhaps, my
dear friends, a few of you will yet realize this fact, and
realize moreover that the whole way we think about this
Spiritual Science of Anthroposophy should be influenced by
the consciousness of its relation to the more important
requirements of our time.

This indeed is
closely connected with the way in which, as I personally for
instance must conceive, this Anthroposophical Spiritual
Science movement should take its stand in the spiritual life
of our time. Of course it cannot be attained all at once that
our contemporaries should see these things rightly. Do not
believe, my dear friends (anyone who knows me will certainly
not believe), that I say these things out of any personal
foolishness or vanity; but I am compelled again and again by
the necessity of the facts to characterize what happens in
one direction or another. It is really so — and I have
shown it you on many an occasion — I myself am not at
all inclined to overestimate what I can do and claim to do. I
know the limitations. I am well aware of many things of which
one person or another may have no inkling that I am aware.
But for those who to some extent can judge me rightly in this
direction, I may perhaps say how earnestly I would desire one
thing (the word “desire” is not quite right, but
I have no other). It is this, my dear friends, that there
should be a certain sense of discrimination between what is
intended here, and other things with which it is so
frequently confused. How many there are still today, who
seeing here or there this or that occult society — or
society that calls itself occult — will not
discriminate it as healthy human understanding can
discriminate it, from what is here to be found. For,
imperfect as it may be, here there is at least the real
striving to reckon with the consciousness of the age. Look on
the other hand at all the other things that are frequently
considered as occult or similar movements. How do they reckon
with the consciousness of the time? Look at all the Masons of
low and high degree, look at all the different religious
communities, this is just the antiquated thing about them,
they are unable really to reckon with the consciousness of
our time. Where else do we find people speaking out of the
real foundations? Where do we find them speaking on the
burning questions of the time in a way that really enters
into modern life, that is adapted to the realities? From all
the rituals and instructions of the one or the other Masonic
or religious community, you will not be able to discover
these things. This is what I would desire: a real sense of
discrimination.

I admit, my
dear friends, it is made more difficult, because owing to the
historical circumstances which I once described to you, this
Society was confused in the beginning with the Theosophical
or with all manner of other Societies. Outwardly considered,
it may have been a mistake; karmically it was justified. It
would have been more worldly-wise if this Anthroposophical
Society, standing entirely upon its own ground, had been
founded without any relation to other societies. Outwardly
conceived, it would certainly have been more wise. For all
this philistinism, the bourgeoisdom of the Theosophical
Society and all the antiquated stuff would not have flowed
into it. Not that it has flowed into Anthroposophy; it has
not. But it has entered into the life and habits of the
Society. If only Anthroposophy lived rightly in our Society
— which it does not do — this Society could, in a
certain sense at least, be a perfect example to characterize
one-third of the social structure which flows from
Anthroposophy itself. I mean the spiritual third, even
including the juridical sphere. For, my dear friends, the
principle of human rights which should hold sway from
individual to individual — this should really go
without saying among Anthroposophists. I always feel it as
the sharpest and bitterest breach with the spirit which
should develop amongst us, when one member speaks of another
in such a way that he goes outside to complain or to accuse.
Here too the consciousness of right, insofar as it is
included in the one third of the social structure, should
develop. But we have a long way to go yet to gain an
Anthroposophical Society such as is really intended,
containing what it might contain out of the impulses of
Anthroposophy. First of all, my dear friends, we must evolve
the ear for inner truth which so few people have today.
Because this sense of discrimination which should really come
from without fails so to come, it is necessary for me now and
then to point to the distinctive features from one point of
view or another. And today, especially with regard to certain
things, I would say this; What lives through me myself in
this Anthroposophical Movement is distinguished from other
things in one essential respect. I have always worked
according to the principle which I stated in the preface to
the first edition of my
Theosophy,
namely that I communicate nothing else than what I can communicate
from my own personal experience. I communicate nothing else than
what I from my own personal experience can stand for. Here at
this place there is no appealing to authorities such as is
cultivated so much in other quarters.

This, my dear
friends, entails a certain consequence. I may truly say that
the spiritual stream which is guided through the
Anthroposophical Movement depends upon no other stream. It
depends alone on the spirituality that is flowing through the
time. Hence I am under no obligation — I beg you to
take this in all earnestness — I am under obligation to
no one to keep silence about anything of which I myself
consider that it ought to be spoken about in our time. For
one who is obliged to no man for his spiritual treasure,
there is no rule of silence.

That will
already give you a basis for distinguishing this movement
from others. For if anyone should ever say that that which is
proclaimed in Anthroposophical Spiritual Science is
proclaimed in any other way than in the sense of what was
said in my
Theosophy,
namely that I myself am
answering for it purely out of my own experience — if
anyone should ever say this, then, if you will, he may not
know the facts, or he has frequently been absent, or he has
only seen them from outside. But whether it be from malice or
otherwise, he is proclaiming the untruth. He, on the other
hand, who says something else, let us say he alleges some
“past” or a connection of this spiritual movement
with another, knowing all the time the facts and
circumstances here among us — he is telling lies. That
is the point, my dear friends. He will either be telling the
untruth through ignorance of the facts, or, knowing well the
facts he will be lying. And in effect, these alternatives
include all the opponents of this movement.

Hence I must
emphasize again and again; I have only to keep silence
concerning those things of which I knew that they cannot yet
be communicated to mankind owing to its immaturity. But there
is nothing on which I must keep silence in connection with
anyone to whom any vow has been made, or for any such reason.
Never has anything flowed into this movement that came from
another side. Spiritually, this movement was never dependent
on any other. The connections were always only of an external
character. Perhaps, my dear friends, the time will come that
you will see that it is well to remember that I sometimes say
things in advance, which only afterwards become apparent in
their right connection. If you have the good-will, the time
may come when it will serve you well to remember the sense in
which the spiritual treasure that must flow through the
Anthroposophical Movement is being cultivated here.

Nevertheless
there is a touchstone for anyone who is willing to
distinguish this Anthroposophical Movement from other
movements. There is a touchstone available today for such a
movement and it is threefold. First: such a movement must
show itself equal to the scientific and intellectual
requirements of the time. Go through all the literature that
I have produced; however imperfect in this or that detail,
you will see everywhere the earnest effort to create a
movement drawing not on old antiquated sources, but
thoroughly at home in the scientific methods of the present
time and working in full harmony with the present scientific
consciousness. That is the one thing. The second is this:
that such a movement has something really vital to say on the
life-questions of the present time, for instance on the
social question. What other movements have to say in this
direction — try to compare it in its antiquatedness, in
its remoteness from reality, with what this movement
has to say. The third part of the touchstone is this: that
such a movement can consciously explain the different
religious needs of mankind to themselves — can explain
them and clarify them. That is to say, it combines
enlightenment concerning the religious needs of mankind with
a full and actual acquaintance with realities.

Herein already,
my dear friends, you can distinguish this movement from all
those which provide after all no more than Sunday afternoon
addresses, which can well achieve the feat of giving moral
sermons and the like, but in face of the real ideas working
in the present social structure, are remote from the world. A
science of realities in our time must be able to speak on
labor and capital and credit and the land, and all these
things of the present day — in a word, on the shaping
of social life — even as it can speak on the relation
of man to the Divine Being, on the love of his neighbor and
so forth. This is what mankind has left undone so long; to
find the real connections, from the highest realms down to
the immediate and concrete tasks and processes of life. This
is what Theology and Theosophy in their various forms in our
time have left undone and what a certain occult movement too
has left undone. They talk from above downwards till they
reach the point where they can say to men: Be good! —
and so on in like fashion. But they are unfruitful, they are
sterile, when it comes to really taking hold of the burning
questions of the time. External science and scholarship can
speak of these immediate things of life, but they speak in a
way that is remote from realities. I showed you yesterday how
estranged they are from actual life. After all, how many
people are there today who know what capital is, what it is
in reality? True, they know: When they have so much money in
a safe that it is so much capital. But that is not to know
what capital is. To know what capital is, is to know how the
regulation of the social structure works with respect to
certain things and persons. Just as for the single human
being we must learn to know, anthroposophically, the
relationships that obtain in the cycle of the blood that
rhythmically regulates man's life, so must we know what is
pulsating in the most varied ways in social life. But, my
dear friends, present-day physiology is not even able
materialistically to solve the most important questions, for
they can only be solved by anthroposophical insight into the
threefold man.

What, for
instance, does present-day science know on one immensely
important question, namely this: Purely materialistically
speaking — what does thought or ideation depend on?
What does the will depend on? In a certain direction? I can
speak of these things today because, as I said before on
another point, I have investigated them for thirty to
thirty-five years. Ideation depends upon the fact that man
has within him, in the course of the circulation of his
blood, carbonic acid which is not yet breathed out. When
carbonic acid not yet breathed out is circulating inside him,
there you have the material counterpart, the material
correlate of Thought. And when there is oxygen in man —
oxygen not yet converted into carbonic acid, oxygen that is
still on the way to transformation into carbonic acid; there,
in a certain direction, you have the material correlate of
the Will. Where oxygen pulsates in man — oxygen not yet
entirely transformed, but fulfilling certain functions
— there is the Will materially at work. And where
inside the human body there is carbonic acid, not quite
elaborated to the point of expulsion or out-breathing, there
you have the material foundation for a Thought-form. But as
to how these two poles, the Thought-pole, which we may also
call the carbonic acid pole, and the Will-pole which we may
also call the oxygen pole — as to how they are
regulated, only a science of realities can tell. Nowhere in
the books of today will you find such a truth as I have just
expressed.

Because men do
not train their thinking with respect to a reality like this,
therefore they also fail to train it with respect to what is
necessary for the man of today in the social structure. But
this will have to come, my dear friends, it is necessary for
our time. The social question must be made to include the
question of how man, as a soul and spirit being, stands
within the social structure.

All these
things have been left undone. Think how different it would be
if in this or that establishment the individual worker were
placed, even in soul and spirit, into the whole process which
the commodity he makes undergoes in the world; if he
understood how he stands within the social structure through
the fact that he produces just this commodity. But this can
only be realized if there holds sway a real interest from man
to man, so much so that in course of time there will be no
true adult man or woman unable to master the most important
social concepts in a real way. The time must come — it
is a social need — when a man will know what capital
and credit, what ready-money and checks are in their real
economic effects — and these things can be known; they
are not difficult, they need only be rightly attacked by
those who have to teach them. The time will come when every
man must know these things, just as one knows today that soup
is eaten not with a fork but with a spoon. Anyone who ate his
soup with a fork would be behaving ridiculously, would he
not? That the man or woman who is ignorant of these other
things is behaving ridiculously too — this must become
the public opinion.

Then, my dear
friends, the most important impulse of the present time
— the social impulse — will be placed on a very
different foundation.